ARC Review: Catacomb by Madeleine Roux // The Most Magnificent Ending

Tuesday 3 November 2015
Catacomb (Asylum #3), by Madeleine Roux
Publication: September 1, 2015, by HarperTeen
Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Horror, Mystery
Pages: 352
Format: ARC
Source: BEA/Publisher
Rating: ½

Sometimes the past is better off buried.
Senior year is finally over. After all they’ve been through, Dan, Abby, and Jordan are excited to take one last road trip together, and they’re just not going to think about what will happen when the summer ends. But on their way to visit Jordan’s uncle in New Orleans, the three friends notice that they are apparently being followed.. And Dan starts receiving phone messages from someone he didn’t expect to hear from again—someone who died last Halloween.
As the strange occurrences escalate, Dan is forced to accept that everything that has happened to him in the past year may not be a coincidence, but fate—a fate that ties Dan to a group called the Bone Artists, who have a sinister connection with a notorious killer from the past. Now, Dan’s only hope is that he will make it out of his senior trip alive.
In this finale to the New York Times bestselling Asylum series, found photographs help tell the story of three teens who exist on the line between past and present, genius and insanity.

My Thoughts:

So Halloween just passed by around the corner and I must say: I'm always in for a spooky read. Catacomb and the rest of Madeleine Roux's Asylum trilogy is thrilling, exciting and freaking scary. But at the same time, this last novel may be a surprise for you, since I even had not expected it to be even released or come up with, but it also may be your favourite book of the year, depending on what is your favourite kind of ending.

Catacomb starts off pretty rough. I'll get to that, but let me just explain how much I adore the cover. The covers of this series just keep getting more and more prettier until I cannot take it anymore. The books are seriously glorious and beautiful, and I just can't get the story out of my head now that it's over. I'm reminding you for the fiftieth time: this is a lot like Ransom Riggs's writing. I think that I just had a total deja vu moment because I felt like I said this before. I must have mentioned it in the review of the sequel. Anyways, it's a more contemporary take on Riggs's time-traveling tale, but it is also one that is racing. 




Looking at the plot of this book, it is more messy than any of the other books in the series. It's boring, weird and a little insane as horror books are, but it also is interesting at the same time. This is the main characters' journey and road trip—Dan, Abby and Jordan's, at least. And of course, a new mystery comes out of nowhere and this time, they're stuck in it and one of them may be guilty of murder all of the sudden.


"Dan had never watched someone fall like that—slow at first but then all at once, picking up speed and barreling to the ground so fast there was almost no time to blink between fall and impact." (ARC, page 317)
So this turned out to be more knockoff than I expected. This book wasn't needed—that was my problem. It was slow, and didn't really have to do with anything about the asylum. It's like Roux moved on a few years later and just came up with a new story that deals with murderers this time, and not ghosts, which is what I came here for. The murder storyline was not my favourite out of the three, that's for sure, and the rest of the series was better than this one. It's like the books got worse and worse as I kept reading on through the trilogy. I guess it's just a pretty novel to have in my collection with the other two. *winks*


Madeleine Roux is a spectacular author, don't get me wrong. Her words are very descriptive, perfect for the genre and style of this novel, and I was pretty addicted to reading this book at times. But it also had its on and off moments where I rolled my eyes—I can't lie about that. And the romance could have honestly gone somewhere. I feel like sighing because Dan kept thinking about Abby but it's like the author didn't have time or enough pages to fit something about them increasing and falling in love.






Catacomb is wonderful. I'm happy that the ending has come because this series would have seriously become dragging. But anyway, it was interesting enough and the photos just made the experience ten times better. This is a powerful story.

*A review copy was provided by the publisher via BookExpo America in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much!*


What do you think of horror story trilogies? Would you read a story all the way through?

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